Well, these are two pretty similar cars we have here! It's only details that could potentially make the difference. Considering they both belong to the suv segment and utilize the same 5-door suv body style and the 4 x 4 wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a BMW-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 192hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 150hp engine designed by Toyota.

Unfortunatelly, neither of the two vehicles was submitted to the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) testing. This makes it virtually impossible for me to pick one over the other and I'm generally against buying such cars as the safety should really always come first. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the suv segment, which is generally a very good thing safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? Furthermore, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the German car offers a potentially life-saving difference of 38% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Toyota as a brand displays somewhat better results, at least on all of the models level. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of BMW with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Toyota badge with 4.6 out of 5. Independent research findings rank X3 as average reliability-wise, and RAV4 is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the German car rank it on average as 2.8, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.6 out of 5.

BMW is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.7 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 208 kilometers per hour, 23km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the Japanese car, averaging around 8.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (32 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 27% difference compared to the German car!

Toyota is apparently more reliable, not too much, but just enough. The most important thing when deciding between any two vehicles should always be safety, both passive and active. In my opinion, everything taken into account, the German car offers much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. It all continues in the same direction, with BMW being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... No mistake, whatever you decide here, but I'd still go for the Toyota. Anyway, that's the most objective conclusion I could've came up with and it's based solely on the information found on this website. Aspects such as design, practicality, brand value and driving experience are there for you to measure them out. In case you have two minutes to spare I invite you to define your needs, desires and budget and see which car would be chosen by the virtual adviser™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.